Women rode with as much ease and frequency as men. Young girls rode on side saddles for long journeys. Older women rode behind men on pillions, which were padded cushions which had a sort of platform stirrup. An excellent representation of a pillion is here given in Mr. Henry's charming picture, "Waiting at the Ferry," as well as of an old-time gig used at the end of the eighteenth and in the early part of the nineteenth century.
Horseflesh was so plentiful that "no one walked save a vagabond or a fool." Doubtless our national characteristic of never walking a step when we can ride dates from the days "when we lived under the King." Driving alone, that is, a man or woman driving for pleasure alone, without a driver or post-boy, is an American fashion. It was carried back to Europe by both the French and English officers who were here in Revolutionary times. The custom was noted with approval by the French in their various books and letters on this country. They also, La Rochefoucauld among them, praised our roads.
Mr. Ernst, an authority upon transportation and postal matters, believes that our roads in the northern provinces, on the whole, were excellent. He says that the actual cost of the roads as contained in Massachusetts records proves that the notion that our New England roads were wretched is not founded on fact. He notes our great use of pleasure carriages as a proof of good roads; in 1753 Massachusetts had about seven such carriages to every thousand persons. The English carriages were very heavy. In America we adopted the light-weight continental carriages--because our roads were good.
The corduroy road was one of the common road improvements made to render the roads passable by carts and stage-wagons. Marshy places and chuck-holes were filled up with saplings and logs from the crowded forests, and whole roads were made of logs which were cut in lengths about ten or twelve feet long, and laid close to each other across the road. Many corduroy roads still remain, and some are veritable antiques; in Canada they still are built. A few years ago I rode many miles over one in a miner's springless cart over the mountains of the Alexandrite range in upper Canada, and I deem it the most trying ordeal I ever experienced.